28/04/2007
Ratification of forum names.
All forum area names and descriptions have been changed to match a standard use of 'BX 16v' and 'BX 16valve' rather than the hodge podge mix. All descriptions now end in full stop.

28/04/07
Antibot Mod
Antibot mod changes a number of system variables in order to block robots adding new accounts.

On the face of things new registering users will not be able to see any changes to the system, however robots which add most of the spam users will be totally confused and unable to hack the system to create spam users. This should see an end to spam robaots and has indeed worked succesffully on other forums i manage!

In the on going battle with the spammers, i have removed the 'newest member' link at the very bottom of the front page of the forum (in the WHo Is Online box). This will stop some of the spammers 101 dodgy accounts beign quite so obvious. The anti bot mod didn't help as mush as i had expected and we are still having problems with spam account generation. Research is pointing to the fact that google robots scan the site every hour and this is how we get found by spammers. Blocking the robot is not a solution as it will limit the searchability and popularity of the site by google. Will atempt to limit the robot activity and see if this will limit the spam accounts, but initial attempts have failed!

it is now required that users type in an authorisation code when registering. To find the code they must go to a remote image.

This is the ultimate solution, if this doesnt work then i'm sorry i have failed Its worked wonders for other sites, i hope it works as well for this. I would expect less than 10 spammers a week in the immediate future.

Last edited by Vanny on Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

As a result of a direct request the send mail has been looked at and resolved. A mixture of ISP changes, corrupt files and incorrect configuration settings meant that while the forum was sending the emails, they where not getting out of the domain server. The has now been resolved and all email related functionality should be returned.